India: 1 killed as blast hits court complex in Punjab’s Ludhiana

Ludhiana: One person was killed and four were injured in a blast inside a court complex in Ludhiana in Punjab. The blast is reported to have taken place in a bathroom on the second floor of the building.

The intensity of the blast was so huge that it damaged the walls of the bathroom and shattered glass of windows of nearby rooms, Indian media reported.

Police said they have started an investigation, and that there's "no need to panic". Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said those guilty of the crime will not be spared.

The court complex is located near the District Commissioner's office in the heart of Ludhiana city. Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in a Twitter post asked Punjab police to investigate the matter thorougly.

There was a lawyers' strike on Thursday and, therefore, only a few people were in the court complex at the time of the blast.

Terming the blast as the "most shocking and dastardly act", Channi said that inimical forces seeking to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere in the state would never succeed in their nefarious designs.

Condemning the incident, he said everybody knew the timing and the handiwork of those forces as the Assembly polls were drawing near and they were hell-bent upon hatching such conspiracies to disturb the hard-earned peace and harmony in the state.

"It is the need of the hour to condemn such incidents in the harshest possible words by one and all."

Directing police authorities to carry on a detailed investigation to get into bottom of this cowardly and inhuman act, the Chief Minister reiterated his firm commitment to book the perpetrators of the heinous crime and give them exemplary punishment as a deterrent for others not to commit such crime in the future.

Channi said any such attempt to disturb the law and order situation would be dealt with sternly.

Connecting the sequence of unfortunate attempts of the recent incident of sacrilege at Sri Harmandir Sahib and now the bomb blast in the Ludhiana court complex, he said all this indicates several forces are actively involved to create disturbances in the border state for their vested interests.

He said the people of Punjab must remain vigilant to curb the unholy designs of such forces threatening the very ethos of communal harmony, peace, brotherhood and amity.

Channi said the state government would soon give a befitting reply to such anti-social forces, adding these would not be allowed to create a bogey of terror to traumatise the innocent people in wake of forthcoming Assembly elections.

Police Commissioner Gurpreet Bhullar told the media that the explosion might have been executed by a human bomb.

"Though not confirmed, the person whose body is inside and is yet to be identified was either carrying the bomb or was very close to the spot, we are investigating," Bhullar said.